Low foreign demand for idolization art prompts workers to doubt regime

Ordinary North Korean residents involved in selling needlepoint products to overseas customers are coming to realize that products featuring images that idolize the Kim family are unpopular. The increase in participants is due to the authorities’ focus on foreign-currency earning operations. However, these new entrants to the overseas business are coming in contact with ideas that challenge the propaganda-slanted narrative they are presented with in North Korea. This new exposure encourages them to take on a more objective, foreign-influenced worldview.  

“The Pyongyang Embroidery Institute […] produces needlepoint products for the purpose of export and has recently teamed up with a foreign trading company. The outfit employs many women from the area. They are starting to realize that idolization products lack appeal, and that the real world differs from the ‘reality’ presented by the Highest Dignity [Kim Jong Un],” a source in North Pyongan Province told Daily NK on August 11. 
She continued, “In particular, an embroidery titled, ‘Paektu Mountain Milyong Home,’ depicts Kim Jong Il’s hometown [according to state propaganda] and lacks demand. Its price has consistently decreased as a consequence. It is currently selling for about $100.” 

The source identified a poignant price comparison when she said, “Another embroidery is called the last supper, which depicts the famous image of Jesus dining with his twelve apostles. It is selling for about $1,000. The authorities have criticized Christianity by calling it, ‘a precursor to imperial invasion,’ but residents are realizing that it is more popular on the international market.” 

The Pyongyang Embroidery Institute has been in business since the early 2000s with the express purpose of procuring foreign currency for the regime. The organization maintains multiple workstations in China and sells its products to various international customers. 

This type of entity is an important source of governing funds for the regime. The workers are provided with salaries, but the final selling price of the handicraft items was long kept a secret.

However, as marketization continued to proliferate, the Pyongyang Embroidery Institute connected with a trading company in order to optimize sales, creating a larger workforce and more opportunities for employees to exchange information.

“That is how they came to realize that the Paektu Mountain piece – which is an important part of Kim family iconography – is selling for 10% the price of the Christian-inspired piece. Residents are responding to this precipitous drop by asking, ‘The Kim family embroidery is selling for an awfully cheap price, isn’t it?’” a second source in Pyongyang explained.

For the sake of comparison, the Mansudae Art Studio [North Korea’s large-scale art enterprise established in 1959] also creates and sells artwork to earn foreign currency. Their oil painting ‘Paektu Mountain Milyong Spring’ is selling for 4,620 yuan (~$690), and their oil painting ‘Chosun Tiger’ is selling for 26,300 yuan (~$3,900).